Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery by Anthony Berkeley

known who was with her. And there are one or two other details too into which I needn’t go now, small enough in themselves but uncommonly convincing in the mass. Anyhow, you can see that it’s a really bad business. So if I put one or two questions to you, Miss Cross, you won’t think me unnecessarily impertinent, will you?”
    “Of course not,” said the girl earnestly. “And I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your kindness. But you won’t – you won’t put too much about me in the Courier , will you?”
    “You can rely on my discretion,” Roger smiled. “I’ll see that you’re not worried in that sort of way so far as I’m concerned at any rate; and I’ll drop a word or two in season to any others of my kidney who follow me down here. Well now, first of all I want you to tell me exactly what happened on this walk you had with your cousin. Can you do that?”
    The girl frowned in an effort of memory. “Yes, I think so. It was quite simple. We walked along the cliffs about a mile toward Sandsea and then turned round and came back; just before we got as far as this Elsie said she wanted to go over and speak to a Mrs Russell, a neighbour, about some treat for the village children that they were getting up between them. She knew this was a favourite place of mine, so she asked me to wait for her here, and we could go back to the house for tea together.”
    “One minute,” Roger interrupted. “Where does Mrs Russell live?”
    “About halfway between our house and the village.”
    “I see. So it was really out of her way to come back and pick you up here?”
    “Yes, it was a little; but Elsie always liked walking along these cliffs. She nearly always went into the village this way instead of by the road.”
    “The road lying on the other side of the house from here, of course. Then is the Russells’ house on the same road?”
    “Yes, but the road winds toward the cliffs farther along, so it wouldn’t take her so much out of her way to come back to me here as if it didn’t.”
    “No, I see that. Yes?”
    “Well, she didn’t come back. I must have waited for nearly an hour and a half. Then, as it was past teatime, I walked over to the house alone.”
    “Now, sitting down here, you couldn’t see anybody walking along the clifftop, or they you, unless they happened to walk right over the top of this bank at the back here?”
    “No.”
    “As a matter of fact, did anybody pass while you were here?”
    “No, not a soul.”
    Roger frowned. “That’s a pity. That means you can’t actually prove that you were here during that time, can you?”
    “If Miss Cross says she was here,” Anthony put in warmly, “then she was here. That ought to be good enough for anyone.”
    “Except a court of law, Anthony. Courts of law are nasty, suspicious things, I’m afraid. By the way, did Mrs Vane ever get to the Russells’ house, Miss Cross?”
    “No, she didn’t; that’s the extraordinary thing. In fact nobody seems to have seen her at all from the time she left me to the time her body was found.”
    “It’s a nasty gap,” Roger commented thoughtfully. “Isn’t it rather curious that she should have been about here all the time without being seen? Aren’t there usually plenty of people in the neighbourhood?”
    “No, as a matter of fact there aren’t. It’s usually fairly deserted up here. Ours and the Russells’ are the only two houses out this way, you see. And there’s another point about that; anybody walking along the edge of the cliff can’t be seen from the road except in one or two places, because of the high ground between, if you remember noticing it.”
    “Yes, that is so; you’re right. Hullo, what’s that bell?”
    “That will be our dinner-bell,” said the girl with a faint smile. “A most efficient one, isn’t it?”
    “Highly. Well, Miss Cross,” Roger said, scrambling to his feet, “I don’t think there’s any need to keep you any longer just now, though